Airbus has confirmed plans to open an additional A320 production line in Hamburg as part of moves to increase the production rate of its popular single aisle aircraft to 60 a month by the middle of 2019. The manufacturer’s executive vice-president for programmes Didier Evrard said growing demand for single aisle aircraft and an “impressive” backlog for both the current models...
Qantas’s Boeing 737-800 retrojet headed to Longreach over the weekend as part of a charity flight raising funds for drought affected Western Queensland. The ‘Retro Roo’, VH-XZP, touched down at Longreach just after 1000 local time on Saturday carrying a full load of 168 passengers who each paid $737 for the day trip from Sydney to the airline’s the spiritual home and the...
China is poised to unveil a prototype of its first homegrown passenger jet that it hopes will compete with airliners from Boeing Co. and Airbus Group SE, setting the stage for the plane's first flight. Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China, also known as COMAC, will roll out its single-aisle C919 airliner Monday at its factory in Shanghai. The plane's first test flight has been pushed...
Air China will launch a direct flight from Beijing to Havana, Cuba, on Dec. 27, linking China with the Caribbean for the first time. A Boeing 777-300ER airplane will leave Beijing three times a week, with a stop in Montreal. Previously, flights would go via Spain, Germany, France or Mexico. Chinese do not need visas to enter Jamaica, the Bahamas, Grenada, and the Turks and Caicos Isl...
Scoot chief executive Campbell Wilson plans to make the budget carrier a conduit between Australia and fast-growing markets such as China and India as it expands its network from its home base in Singapore. A newly delivered Scoot Boeing 787 Dreamliner jetted into Melbourne yesterday to make the Victorian capital the long-haul budget carrier's fourth Australian destination after Sydney, the...
Iranian airlines have bought 13 narrow-body Boeing 737 aircraft in their latest move to rebuild the country's commercial fleet, a news agency says. Two of the used aircraft, of the vintage 737-400 model, will fly in from a European country on Monday night, Fars quoted an informed source as saying Sunday without disclosing any names. The two aircraft are the first of eight Boeing 737...
On November 2, 2015, the first COMAC C919 with blue and green coatings to be assembled in Shanghai, rolled out of the newly-built final assembly workshop. Rollout means the completion of installation of body segments and airborne systems, which are ready for ground tests, and also laid a solid foundation for its maiden flight in the next stage. C919 is a short-medium range single-aisle jet whic...
The General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has banned 10 countries and 30 operators from using UAE air space over a lack of commitment to safety, "Emarat Al Youm" reports. Meanwhile, the authority confirmed that it had carried out more than 300 inspections under "the national programme for safety assessment of foreign aircraft". The body asserted that such lists remain v...
Russian air transport agency chief Alexander Neradko said that deciphering of the plane’s flight recorders had not yet started Fragments of the ill-fated A321 Russian passenget jet retrieved from the crash site in northern Sinai indicate that the plane was breaking down in midair at a high altitude, Russian air transport agency chief, Alexander Neradko, said on Sunday. "Our specia...
The remains of Russian tourists killed in a passenger jet crash in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula are expected to start arriving back in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Sunday as questions swirl over what caused the disaster. All 224 people aboard Kogalymavia Flight 9268 died in the Saturday morning crash that left debris strewn across a remote area of a region plagued by a violent Islamic insurgency....
Cirrus Aircraft says it hopes to start construction within the next two months on its planned distribution center and showroom at McGhee Tyson Airport, with a goal of completion by mid-2016. Company and local government officials gathered Thursday afternoon for a groundbreaking for the $15 million "Vision Center," which is expected to create 170 jobs. On Wednesday, the Metropolitan...
Travel via large U.S. commercial airlines is among the world's safest transportation modes, but airlines may be lulled into a false confidence when they interpret averted collisions and other near-misses as proof that their safety systems are satisfactory, according to a team of expert risk analysts. In calling for stricter scrutiny of near-misses as indicators that safety systems may need...
